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Good morning!
>>I was going to do the competition track with low jumps. >>
Perfect!
>>I have started to notice with more movement on my end Iām starting to get flanking behavior. You can see it pretty good in this exercise lol.>>
Thank you for the blooper moments! Those are more important to see than the perfect moments š Basically, if she was on the line, you could run. But if you ran *before* she was on the line, she would run around the jumps to the toy (I think there was a placed toy on each rep). So what was happening was that you were tending to be stationary or rotated towards her until she got on the line to the first jump, then you ran. We donāt want her to rely on your being stationary or adding rotation, plus that makes it harder to connect, so a few ideas for you:
It appears that if she gets on the line (jump 1) then she stays on the line to jump 2, so we can focus on getting her to look for jump 1 instead of running past it.
Work through this game being in motion the whole timeā¦. But walking for the first session. The big acceleration (because you are a fast runner) is cuing big accelerationā¦ but she is inexperienced so she doesnāt always include the jumps LOL! Donāt top moving but also donāt go fast and donāt rotate towards her on the wing wrap.
Along with that, letās change the reward placement to get her thinking about the jumps:
– do one session with thrown cookie rewards for finding the line to jump 1 (like GIANT pieces of string cheese). You will be connected so you will be able to see her look at the line to the jump after the wing wrap (mark and throw the cheese to the landing of 1) or looking past it to go around it (sadness, no cheese LOL!)
– If that goes well, do a session with a thrown toy to land between 1 and 2, with you walking.
– If that goes well, place the toy on the landing side of 1, halfway between 1 and 2Because each session can be just 3 reps, you can do each step, take a break, then come back and do the next step. If she struggles, you can do it more slowly in terms of spreading it out over several days.
If she can find jump 1 easily with your in motion (walking) the whole time to the exciting place toy, then you start moving the toy back – move it to the takeoff spot of jump 2 (you can take the bar out of jump 2 when you do that so she doesnāt splat herself) then to the landing side of 2.
If that goes well? Repeat the process with you jogging the whole time (started with the food rewards tossed to the landing of 1). Then it gets repeated with you running š
It might seem like a lot of steps, but it will actually happen really quickly!
>>I was going to put up a little gate to help her out but Iām sure more experience with obstacles will help as she gets older too.>>
I agree that it gets easier with experience! I personally avoid gates because sometimes they do help get the behavior but they are notoriously hard to fade out (because they are the cue for the behavior). And, sometimes dogs just run past them LOL! So I like to break it down and shape it, which allows the behavior to hold up as we add speed and excitement.
Great job here! Let me know how it goes!
TracyHappy New Year!!! I am excited to see you here!!!! Onwards to a great year and new neural pathways š
Tracy
Good morning! Nice work here! Karma is so fun!!!!!!
I think you did a great job with your connections!!!
>>I felt very connected to Karma and saw no āhead checkingā on her part, but I REALLY had to think about watching her the entire timeā¦ā¦ā¦.I know I am used to making the connection at first, and then looking where I am going, >>
Yes! I could see the angel on one of your shoulders saying ālook at Karmaā and the devil on the other shoulder saying ālook at where you are goingā hahaha!!
So you were actively reminding yourself to look at her, look at her, look at her. That might be why it felt different – but with more practice, I think it will be second nature and you wonāt have to think about it at all.
It seems like you are a shade more comfortable with her on your right (first video) – that was all quite brilliant! On the 2nd video, dog on left, it looked like you were looking a little ahead of her more, fighting the urge to look at where you going.
Compare the 2nd rep of each video – :21 of the dog on right video versus :22 on the dog on left video. On the dog on right, you looked all the way back to her and on the dog on right video, you were looking a bit ahead of her. Both were really good connection – the dog on right connection was GREAT connection š So keep reminding yourself to look for her eyes, especially when she is on your left side. The 3rd rep on your left side was great connection! You really locked in!
One thing to experiment with: you might not need to have your arm up when you are running – it might be easier to jump pump your arms like a sprinter, or use a low arm – both of those options will still allow you to show great connection and you can run faster when using less arm. She is a speedster so we want to try for any advantage to stay ahead of her!
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Nice work here!
>>What I am now struggling with is ChangtseāsāØnot wanting to start a sequence or part of a sequence, eg, asking her to wrap the wing in the following Game wasnāt always desirable.>>
Hmmmmm that is interesting – do you have video so I can try to see why it might have been happening?
>>the no connection vs connection is pretty apparent!>>
Yes, that is why video is so fun to use! At :04 and :11, you were looking ahead at the last jump, so she didnāt take it. There was another factor though:
The wing is centered on the line here so if you are next to it when you send, you are pulling her off the line when you are trying to get past the blue jump (rather than running straight up the line). So that was a factor too – and when you used the BIG connection at :18, she got it beautifully! Nice!
Last rep (from the table) – great connection and straight line running, so it was pretty perfect!
So for these sequences, line up the start wing to match the line of the wing of the jump you are running past, so you can run a straight line.
>>When you suggested that I teach Changtse toput herhead in the leash loop, I didnāt believe that Icould train that with Changtse. Wonders never cease!>
This is great! Well done to you for teaching it! Note her wagging tail š She seems happy to have learned this new ātrickā š Great job!!
Tracy
Good morning! This went really well!!
I thought you had pretty perfect connection on all the reps. He only seemed to have one question:On the first video(when he was on your left) – the line was a little harder (good job moving the wing to straighten it out) but you had great connection so he was really good! As things get moving faster, you can tie your hair back so as you get ahead and moving faster, your hair doesnāt accidentally block your face.
His only question was at about 1:15. You were way ahead and moving fast, so he went around the jumps. Was it because of your position out ahead, or speed, or the line was harder? I am not entirely sure but it was a great challenge for him! I thought your connection was good but he might not have been able to see it that well. To help him out when you are way ahead, you can point your dog-side arm back to him to really open up the connection and for now – donāt move quite as fast when you are way ahead. We will add the speed back when he is used to you being that far ahead.
You were not as far ahead or moving as fast on the other reps, and he was back to being perfect š
The 2nd video was terrific: Perfect connection and he had zero questions: fast and perfect on the line. Yay!
Great job!
TracyHi!
>>she bosses all the day care dogs and rushes thru life like an energster bunny on steroids>>
Papillon. LOL!!!!
>>Now i am being thick but can you post a detailed slow motion of the spin it is doing my head in.>>
here ya go! There is some slow motion in here. It is a front cross on the jump then a blind cross before you fully finish the FC.
>>Ps in synch shocked me with how well she did apart from time needed to kill the toy at the end and the disapproval of holding the collar. I havent done very much so far apart from teaching a little on wrap and a single set wings. She said i got this get out of my eay.>>
Awesome!!!
>>I on the other hand was a mess trying to keep eyes on tjis tiny speedster.>>
I find it harder to connect with small dogs because they are harder to see. Keep thinking about looking down to her eyes and it will get easier š
Tracy
Hi! Happy New Year!
This went really well, and you didnāt really need 75 hands LOL! He is FAST omg! I love it!!!!
I also love love love how he could go back and forth from the cookies to a tug.
You only got turned around once, when he took longer than expected to get the cookie and that threw off your blind cross timing. The others all looked really good! You can throw the start cookie even further which buys you more time to do the blind š
>>I really struggled to get the toy tossed out, so tried just leaving it as a target instead. >>
I can see why it would be hard to get the toy out early enough by throwing itā¦. His speed would make that challenging. Placing it was the right choice – it added the impulse control element of ignoring it (even when a tossed cookie was near it) and then he got to practice his acceleration to it (and his acceleration was impressive, which shows that he really was using impulse control to ignore it til cued).
>>After watching the video, I wonder if I am moving faster than I need to, esp in the decel turn?>>
I think you needed to hustle like that to run up the line to the blind. What you can show him, though, is a transition into the decel so he can collect into the pivot then accelerate again to the toy. So as he is getting his start cookie, you can start to run with the serious hustle you had here. Then as he takes his first step back to you, do the blind cross then immediately start slowing downā¦ then pivot when he gets to you. That should get the nice tight turns. His turns were not really wide here, but the added bit of decel will get him to shorten his stride and collect, before accelerating again.
Great job!
TracyHi!
Ok, she was hilarious in the backing up video. You did a great job of getting her back feet just barely off the wobble board, where it would have been very easy to just step back onto itā¦ theoretically. She was like āNope! I will just turn around. That is clearly the smarter route.ā Made me chuckle.
All of the front-feet-only backing up was perfect! And you had one moment of getting only one back foot off the boardā¦ that was AWESOME and she stepped it right back onto the board. If you can re-create that, it is a great way to split the behavior. If you canāt re-create it, you can try adding the 2 boards you used early on and see if she has the āa-ha, mom wants BACKING UP!ā moment. She didnāt seem worried about the wobble board here, it just seemed like it was more efficient & easier (from her view) to turn around to get on it.
The rocking horses looked great! Her brother barking was not a problem for her, and she was able to run past the toy in your hand. BRILLIANT! And you were rotating earlier which was great too – lots of distance here and her turns looked lovely.
When you rotate earlier, you can play with transferring hands too, in order to have more rotation. What I mean by that is at :46, for example, she was on your left and you rotated really well (nice and early) but your left arm stayed across your body as she arrived at the cone. That can delay your speedy departure to the next line on a course (or cone, in this case š ) because you have to kind of unravel the arm before you can really run hard. So what you can play with is ātransferringā her from your left arm to your right arm as she is passing you, so your right arm ends up cuing the cone as you rotate (just like the backwards and sideways sends). And if you look at the cone (and it will be the landing spot on a jump) as she passes you and you move away, that will support commitment too while creating a lot of countermotion and distance.
That shift of connection to the ālanding spotā (cone) as she passes you with the countermotion becomes really important when you rotate nice and early – I LOVED your rotation at :48 and how you changed arms so your left arm cued the cone. You were looking down at her though, so that caused her to come into you (they naturally follow where the eyes go and where the shoulders are pointed, which is related to where the eyes go). Plus looking down stopped your motion a bit and your left leg never stepped to the cone, which also caused her to stop. Baby dogs are very literal especially when it come to countermotion!
She is doing well with the head turns too! One suggestion: try a lower and slower turn hand – youāll get even more bendiness because she will have more time to bend like a noodle, plus her head will be lower which helps too.
Great job here!!
TracyHi!
Excellent job with the mechanics on the sit! And excellent dance moves! I often lead out flailing my arms to help the dogs understand that really and truly my arms are NOT the release or reward cue, even when the word is muddy and sometimes paired with the hand movement. Her stay is getting more and more solid! She did well with the toy too – you can add more leading out with the toy in hand, so she has a solid stay with the excitement of the toy as well.She did some stomach punching later in the video and you didnāt like it as much as the other day LOL! So since she will do it when in doubt, cue the sit sooner so she doesnāt keep doing it to the point where it might be annoying.
She did really well with the pivoting! She seems to pivot a little better to her right? But she is doing pretty independent steps in both directions. You can add in a small, low thing to step over on each side of the perch so she pivots over it as she returns to center after the treat toss. Because she is so little, you can use a small/narrow rolled up towel so it is low enough to step over easily.
Threadling is looking really strong – I think you can add in the threadle slidce verbal now – start saying it as soon as she finishes eating the start cookie! And if the verbal is easy for her (I think it will be) you can move to the advanced level where you show her the difference between the serp and the threadle slice.
Great job here!
TracyHi!
>>After the session I started wondering if it was the pressure of the things along the wall on her right side because she was also a bit sticky in my parentās living room the first time I tired this and (thanks to the grand piano) I had her going close to the wall just like this.>>
After seeing the video, I think that could have been it (more on that below) and also could have been depletion (also more on that below haha) but also, on those first couple of reps it looked like the bar (baby bump jump) was a big visual draw for her. She as facing that direction when she looked up from eating the treat and locked onto it, visually. When she did see the barrel, she was like āa-ha!ā And then it was no problem on either side. So perhaps the barrel blended into the stuff along the wall, and the bar was more salient because it was in the middle of the floor (plus the bar has value). And when the brain is tired, it is harder to process and it makes sense that certain visuals would be more salient.
Either way, she did sort it out nicely! And she seems to have more giddy up to her step when you do add the verbals, so go for it with the backside verbal and the toy marker. She was happiest to grab the toy when you dragged it (or dropped-then-dragged). I think that first jump up at you at the beginning was a bit of frustration, because she was heading to what she thought was correct but not getting rewarded as if it was correct.
She was definitely a little not-into-it with the barrel wraps tooā¦a little pressure from the stuff along the wall maybe? But even on the other side, commitment was not as strong. It took her a minute (pretty literally) to get into it – so perhaps it is a question of needing higher arousal to overcome depletion for both games. And it was almost a minute to get into it during the backside game. Soā¦. The volume dial game can do the trick (posted in week 8) by getting her pumped up before you ask training questions.
>>Maybe sheās still recovering from her NY adventure and flight home yesterday. >>
That is totally an element too! She was not moving with her usual sass š The near-behavior-vet types tell us that young dog recovery after air travel and associated stressors can be anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks. EEK! So she had a big adventure and might still be a little off kilter in terms of physiology (I can relate, I am EXHAUSTED from the very little I did over the holidays LOL!!).
So, give her a day or two of decompression which is stuff like sniffy walks, snuffle mats, etc and also the simple training stuff she loves most – probably the ones involving running around like a nut and eating treats LOL!! She might like the new tunnel game (double whammy) – I donāt think it will burn too much brain juice and can feel really fun!
>>I did have some really good tug sessions with her a few times today mixing in sits/downs and hand touches.>>
This also falls into the category of fun silly things that donāt burn toooooo much brain juice (brain juice being the glucose and oxygen it burns when working hard LOL!)
Nice work here!!
TracyThat is a good age – I think she can do the competition track, if you have had the time to show her more jumps š
Tracy
Hello! Welcome back! Your double entendres cracked me up! I’m excited to see Fritzi work – how old is she now?
Have fun š
Tracy
